1. Field
Although not so limited in its utility or scope, implementations of the present invention are particularly well suited for use in vehicle headlamps.
2. Brief Description of Illustrative Environments and Related Art
Manufacturers of automotive headlamps have begun considering the use of arrayed light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in place of conventional light bulbs as a light source within headlamp assemblies. LEDs exhibit, among other advantages over conventional light bulbs, high illumination, reliability and long life. Moreover, LED's are easily handled in automated fabrication processes resulting in LED arrays. One drawback of LED technology is that the closeness with which the LEDs can be spaced is limited by the packaging surrounding each LED. As a consequence of LED-packaging limitations, the constituent LEDs of an LED array cannot be brought into sufficiently close mutual proximity to provide the light intensity (i.e., illumination per unit area) required of devices such as automobile headlamps. Another obstacle to the application of LED technology in headlamps is that a typical LED emits light over a much greater numerical aperture (e.g., “half angle”) than is desired or, indeed, permissible for a headlamp.
Accordingly, there exists a need for an illumination assembly that efficiently collects, concentrates, transmits and contiguously and uniformly projects the light emitted from an arrangement of discretely arrayed light-emitting elements such as LEDs.